Citizens of Dallas, we have a problem. City Manager T.C. Broadnax has hired Eddie Garcia to lead our police department, and here is what Garcia said about his new job: “I’m truly humbled by the thought of wearing the DPD uniform and working alongside such an amazing group of committed men and women.” With that statement, Garcia has joined a cohort of North Texans who have made public their misunderstanding of the word “humbled.” So let’s do this again.
Let’s say you were a longtime DPD cop, and then a city magazine wrote a story about how you and your cop buddies were harassing homeless people and prostitutes, and then you sued the magazine for libel, and while that suit was working its way through the courts for four years, you wound up becoming the police chief of a tiny town that no one has heard of, out by Gun Barrel City, except then you had to resign over allegations that you’d made a sexual and racial slur to a female officer in the department, a series of events that came as no surprise to the magazine, which ultimately dunked all over you and your cop buddies in the libel suit. If that happened to you, then you’d be humbled.
But if, on the other hand, you are chosen to lead the great men and women of the Dallas Police Department, which is about three times larger than the department you had been managing, then you’d be honored. Or excited or tickled. It would be weird to hear the chief of Dallas police say he was tickled to get the job, but it would make more sense than being humbled.
Welcome to Dallas, Chief Garcia. Two tips: 1) Ditch the false modesty. It looks bad in blue. 2) Watch out for Lee Kleinman. He hates the mounted unit.
